Stephen Clarke

Hustings speech

Friends, Fellow Liberal Democrats and Londoners,

I am delighted and honoured to be here today to ask you to put your trust in me, the only candidate in this selection that lives in the seat. I am a passionate liberal democrat and an experienced and dedicated campaigner who is passionate about London. I am currently secretary of Tower Hamlets Liberal Democrats. I was privileged to be their candidate in Bow West at the last local elections.

I have lived in Barking and Dagenham, Newham and now Tower Hamlets for the last 15 years. I have seen their problems at first hand. I can see their similarities and their differences. This is too big an area for any one size fits all solution. We need bold and imaginative thinking tailored to the needs of local communities.

My priorities will be

Transport - I will support the proposed extension of the DLR to Dagenham Dock. I support the construction of Crossrail but I will also campaign to mitigate the disruption caused by its construction. I will campaign strongly for the early opening of Stratford international station both for domestic and international travel to make commuting easier and faster and to encourage more people to take the train rather than the plane It was completed in November 2006 and it is currently planned to remain idle until 2009 this is a scandal.

Olympics- I will campaign to ensure that the Olympic venues are completed on time and budget and with the minimum of disruption to people living nearby. I will also campaign for the greatest possible use of local people both for the construction of the venues and their employment during the games. I will campaign to ensure that the legacy from the Olympics is as beneficial and enduring as possible for our local communities.

Police- We must have more Police actually present on the streets both to fight crime and to fight the fear of crime. The fear of crime feeds crime. The more people are afraid of crime the more law abiding people abandon the streets to criminals. We must roll back that fear and reclaim our streets for our communities. Community support officers do have a role to play but they must be better trained for it a four week course is not enough.

Environmental issues- We need to do more to encourage recycling. The 2 worst boroughs in the entire country for this are Newham and Tower hamlets. We cannot go on like this there is not enough land to bury everything. Our skies must not be polluted by the fumes of incinerators nor our planet warmed. We must recycle more to save resources, to save energy, to save our planet. To go on adding merrily to global warming, which causes sea levels to rise whilst we are all living on a flood plain is clearly the act of a madman.

Local powers to local people- We must give more power back to local people to make local decisions. We need to trust local communities to know what is best for them. The faceless bureaucrat in Whitehall or in City hall does not know best. The people who live locally do. We should devolve power to the lowest appropriate level.

Recreation - We need to protect and enhance our precious open spaces. Our parks and green spaces are London's Lungs as well as places to have fun. They are needed for our children's play and our relaxation. They are needed for our precious wildlife. We should defend all those that we have and take every opportunity to add to them. We must also guard access to our waterways both for the sheer pleasure that is to be had from walking along side them or "simply messing about in boats".

We need someone who will stand up for the people of City and East London, Someone who will put their interests first. We need someone who will call to account the Mayor without fear or favour whether it be Brian or Ken or Boris.

I will work actively and enthusiastically with all of our local parties as I have already been doing here in Tower Hamlets. I will work with your priorities locally because you know what you want from this campaign and you know the areas you want to work on better than any single candidate ever could. You know the facts on the ground because you live and work there so I will work for you.

I will work tirelessly for the Liberal democrats during this campaign to ensure that we get the best possible result from it. I will work to win over new voters. I will work to reengage and re-energise existing Liberal Democrats. If you do me the honour to select me I can promise you we will all have stronger local parties because of this campaign. We must use it as a stepping stone to greater things so that the momentum and data that we will gather as a result of it benefits us all in the future. So that when the next European, Local or General elections come we know where our vote is and how we are going to get it out